When Persistence Goes Wrong – Insights Into Freedom Series, Part 4

Persistence is one of the key disciplines for becoming successful both in your personal and professional life. You were probably told at one point, that it is good to persist and not give up until you get to where you want to go or until you reach your goals.

However, you may find it surprising to know that persistence is not all good all the time. Inside this video, which is the fourth of my Insights Into Freedom video series, I talk about the wrong kind of persistence. I share about how you may be wasting our precious time and effort in persisting on something which could cause you a lot of unnecessary headaches .

Want to know what this is all about? Watch this video and discover a precious insight that I learned during my university days. This lesson on persistence has helped me in my journey towards freedom and I think it will help you a lot too!

Please don’t forget to leave your comments below so we all share insights and grow together towards success.

Transcript Of Today’s Video

My name is Gideon Shalwick. Welcome again to another video for my Key Insights Into Freedom video series.

Inside this video, I want to talk a bit about my university days and some of the lessons I learned there to help me become more free and get more freedom as I have today in my life.

I did five years of study at the university. Five years is too long in my opinion. But I did learn some things, at least. Perhaps not from the textbooks or from the lectures, but I learned some other things that was more of a “behind-the-scenes” kind of learning.

The key lesson that I learned from this was that persistence is a good thing, except when it’s in a wrong direction.

We’ve been taught that persistence is a good thing — when you get started with something you might as well finish it. It is a good habit to have; and yes in general, it is.

It’s only not a good habit if that thing that you’re working on is the wrong thing. There is not much point in working on something that is taking you down on the wrong path.

Here comes the big challenge: How do you know what is the right thing to work on? And how do you know when it is the right time to give up?

That is the big challenge; sometimes it’s a bit like the chicken and egg situation. You can only sort of see with retrospect which was the right path to take and which was the wrong things to take.

A lot of it is trial and error. But I think sometimes you can assess whether you’re going on the right direction or on the wrong direction; and perhaps this only comes with time.

Some tips that you can use for this is to ask people around you; to get to know yourself more; and to read books. See what other people have done.

A key thing that has really helped me is to get to know myself very well. I’m going to talk about some extra models in the rest of this video series that talks about how I’ve been able to find out the right path for me; and now I know that that is the path that I need to persist on.

It encompasses a number of different things playing together. Hopefully, I can clarify how that works for you so that you can apply it to your life and to your business as well.

But really, I just wanted to wake you up to the idea inside this video that yes, persistence is a good thing but only if it’s in a right direction.

When I did currency trading (that is something I did a while ago as well), we learned that you cut your losers and let your winners run. That’s very much the same principle here. If you are on to a loser, cut your loses. And when you cut your loses, you focus on your winners.

That’s all I wanted to say inside this video.

Look out for the next videos coming up and a few more videos to come. I’ll be sharing with you how I found my own path to success and the path I’m now persisting in.

Once you have that clear path, things just start falling into place. I’m going to share it with you how all that works in the coming videos.

Thank you for watching and I look forward to seeing you inside the next video.

About Gideon Shalwick

Gideon Shalwick is a YouTube and video marketing expert, and has figured out how to get a TON of attention using online video (with one YouTube channel reaching 10 million views!), and today, he's built a following of over 100,000 people for his business ventures, and 60,000+ people on this very blog, where he shares some of his most powerful video marketing strategies.

Awesome vid Gideon! I agree that books are a HUGE help. I have so many of them – including a book you’ve talked about ‘From Good to Great”. I haven’t picked it up to, but I plan to soon. Right now, I’m reading a couple of books by Jim Rohn. He’s excellent!

two keys to success according to Will Smith… running (cos you have to tell your inner voice not to give up even though there is pain) and reading (cos it’s very likely that someone else has already had to deal with the exact same problem you are dealing with now…) So yeah, I like my books, and I run every day now

I agree about reading, I’ve grown alot since I started reading more personal growth books. I have read Think and Grow Rich. I would Highly recommend “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale

Hey Reg (and others) – have you read Napoleon Hill’s “Law Of Success”? “Think and Grow Rich” seems to be the shortened version of Hill’s “Law Of Success”. I also read that perhaps once a year… great stuff in there!

Gideon
Thanks for an excellent and thought provoking video – This one really struck a chord with me. So persistence can actually keep you in a rut, as you may be compelled to keep going in what could be the wrong direction for you, or at least to carry on doing something that used to work for you which doesn’t any more. I appreciate you mentioning “The Hedgehog Concept” (Where passion, skills and profit intersect) in another video, which is a great test to apply if you are not sure if you are on the right path.

Maybe I”ll eventually get into running again. It’s hard cuz I really hate it! lol! I love kickboxing though. Even when it hurts, that’s something that’s easy for me to push through cuz I have a true passion for it.

I have been following you over the past 2 years, on and off, and I am so pleased for your success which you absolutely deserve. And as you requested some feedback on this latest set of work – I see you are testing the water – here is my input.

I have been producing video clips since 2005 but until about 18 months ago, these were a supplement to our core activity which is IT training, i.e. I did not plan to build a business around them. (This has now changed).

What I have observed is that the quality of the video has in the end very little to do with achieving success. This was surprising to me. What seems to do the trick is getting the content right – coming back to the usual issues about identifying your target public and its needs.

And what I observe with the set of videos you have just published, this seems to confirm my hunch. The comments are luke warm and then there are the usual ones that only fish for trackbacks and are not of great interest.

And yet, your video techniques are improving all the time and are excellent!

It seems to me that despite the great video presentation, you’ll still need to refine: either the content to fit your present target public or reorient the target public to match your new content.

It’s twigging it, of course, that is the secret to success. But then you have the nose and astuteness to get there quicker than I will – I am still struggling with these issues

Most people get intoxicated with their goals, dreams, and visions, it’s the journey that they should be focused on to meet their checkpoint. Read the goals and dreams when you awake and rest for the night. Get intoxicated with production – the actions steps, the stepping stones, make the journey fun too. You WILL ABSOLUTELY GET THERE!

I look at it this way. I’m on your email list because of Rapid Video Blogging, I am interested in related content. Perhaps re-position the Freedom Series using examples as they relate to your core audience concerns.

I’m new to blogging and video blogging. I have lots of concerns and questions. I would recommend perhaps try a video series of critiquing someone new like myself using your Rapid Video Blogging (I am happy to volunteer myself). This creates a temporary mentoring relationship. The interaction will provide an opportunity for you to get to better understand your audience wants and needs so you can find the best affiliate products to meet those needs and/or you can create those products yourself!